Philip Dieperink has resigned from his posts as CFO and management board member at South African firm Steinhoff. He will step down on 31 August 2019 after the 2019 AGM. Following a handover period, he will leave the Steinhoff Group on 31 December 2019. His successor has been named as Theodore de Klerk, currently the firm’s operations director.
Dieperink became Steinhoff’s CFO in January 2018 and played an important role in negotiating and finalising the various arrangements to restructure the group's financial indebtedness and in the process leading towards implementation of a number of CVAs. He also played a key part in finalising both the 2017 and 2018 annual reports and drafting the remediation plan which came out of the investigation by PwC into the company’s books.
PwC had been called in following the discovery of a $7.4bn accounting fraud. The 2017 annual report and accounts, only published in May this year showed a $4bn operating loss as a result. Investigations into the role played by Deloitte as the company’s auditor will continue.
In June Steinhoff launched proceedings against former CEO Markus Jooste and former CFO Ben La Grange in the Cape Town High Court, South Africa to recover certain salary and bonus payments paid to the former CEO and CFO prior to 2017.
